Pirates not welcome here! That was the message U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle delivered Thursday, March 23, 2017 to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (NCDNCR), its employees and the Friends of Queen Anne’s Revenge in response to their motion to dismiss a Federal lawsuit brought by Nautilus Productions LLC. In rejecting the defendants’ attempt to dismiss the copyright claims, Judge Boyle noted that protection of copyrights is a “right of such importance to the founders that it was, unique among most functions undertaken by the federal government today, expressly mentioned in Article I as an important protection to be ensured by the national government.” Judge Boyle’s decision allows the lawsuit for copyright infringement and for a declaration of the statute’s invalidity to move forward in Federal court. Judge Spikes Attempts to Dismiss Blackbeard’s Lawsuit!